Idea Revised: Time Share Servers

[stick100]

My Idea:

- One dedicated server farm whose service will be separated into several logical servers.

- 4 separate servers running for a set 5 hours each day with 1 hour to reset the server farm.

0GMT to 5GMT: 1st Logical Server Operation Time

5GMT to 6GMT: 1st Logical Server Shutdown/2nd Logical Server Startup

6GMT to 11GMT: 2nd Logical Server Operation Time

11GMT to 12GMT: 2nd Logical Server Shutdown/3rd Logical Server Startup

12GMT to 17GMT: 3rd Logical Server Operation Time

17GMT to 18GMT: 3rd Logical Server Shutdown/4th Logical Server Startup

18GMT to 23GMT: 4th Logical Server Operation Time

23GMT to 0GMT: 4th Logical Server Shutdown/5th Logical Server Startup

- Purpose: To enhance the game playing experience by giving players more control over their server world

- This has nothing to do with the fear of being dominated by more highly ranked players

- This has everything to do with the fact that most people do not have unlimited time to commit to Planet Side

- What is the point of Planetside? Is it to simply build the experience of an individual soldier? Or is it to dominate the world of your server?

- Time share servers restrict gaming to a certain period of time each day to permit all participants to be active throughout the ongoing war

- With this system, your team�s successes and failures can only be attributed to you and your playing teammates, not those that live in a radically different time zone

- With this system, you will be more familiar with your teammates and enemies

- With this system, separate outfits will plan together outside of the game to better prepare more effective strategies

- With this system, a daily report can be documented to reflect how the previous day�s battles affected the state of the world

- With this system, casual gamers will be able to be able to see the war in its entirety and see how the results of their planned activities have changed the world on a more permanent basis

[CrazyMike]

Some people just don't get it. Stick you are not cut out for MMOG's. Seriously.


CrazyMike

[Unregistered]

It seems that you have put a lot of thought into this, and I am starting to see your point of view, and if we follow it a little further I think that Planetside has already addressed this as best they can.

For example....

(if I am wrong in my understanding of this let me know)

There will be multiple servers in the U.S. covering West, Central, and East. As well as servers in Europe. I, being on the west coast sign up and play on a West Coast server.

Hamma on the other hand creats his charecter on an East Coast server.

Hamma and I will never cross paths because the 2 servers do not share information. This almost solves the problems that made you start to think about this in the first place.

Not everone has all the time in the world to play, but it's reasonable to think that people in my time zone will have the same time constraints as i do (work & sleep). So at the time I go to sleep most other players will be doing the same, and 16 hours later when I get home from work and log in those same people will just be getting home and logging in.

It would sure be nice to get a DAoC or an EQ players perspective on weather or not things can change that drastically while your sleeping.

[Hamma]

[Unregistered]

Comprimise and play on the central server?

[Hamma]

I hope the servers are linked

edit: damn admins, havent even added the cry smily yet

[Zarparchior]

I know... I felt like I was the only guy on the Westcoast Server... at least I'll have Unreg shooting at me to keep things lively.

But everyone else is am Eastcoast bitch! Most of the kewl people I've met here on Eastside and I won't even get to say hello to them before they'd set me on fire... or worse. :sigh:

I figure I wouldn't be able to play with them anyway, though, even if I was on the same server... Too much difference in time methinks.

Why can't we all quit our jobs and play PS?!

[Flashingfish]

I really don't understand the point of this. Really, I don't. You're basically trying to turn into say, Counterstrike, but on a larger scale, and play continues from the last time.

Planetside is an ONGOING world. Like the real world. And just like the real world, you can't affect everything in it.

In Planetside you won't be playing constantly so you won't have complete control. Who cares. The sheer size of the world abolishes this idea.

[Tetsugaku]

Think ur right Fish, the bit that attracts me is the way there can be so much going on without me even being in the area, a 24 hr world lets me do that

And Unregistered, what you say makes it even better, I'll be loggin onto the UK server, living 50 Miles from where the servers will be and from the UK DNS, means a nice easy ping The good thing is the bits of DSV in the UK (IE most) will be there to play in the evening against most other players.

The really great thing about this is say it's 4 AM, can't sleep / won't sleep - I log on to the UK server, and get to play some stealth infiltration stuff, cos everything will be on Skeleton Staff! DsV can arrange to meet up in the twilight hours and perform some expert Lightning War upon unsuspecting Vanu troops

[Unregistered]

Now I am not 100% sure that the servers won't be linked and we won't all be on the same world, but that's how it has been done on other games.

As far as planning attacks in the middle of the night go it's a valid tatic that will get used. I have heard the first relic stolen in DAoC was done that way. A small group of players logged on in the middle of the night, snuck in and stole it while the majority of players were sleeping.

[Kaikou]

as a 3 year veteran of asherons call...Not much changes overnight...BUT, with a game like planetside, where there are objectives and such to capture...I suppose things could change overnight, but I doubt it would be too drastic. There is always the possibility that a big group of people in the same empire log into the server at the same time really late at night (when most action is at a minimum) and start taking a ton of bases easily. This would seem like a problem...but obviously they can't take close to all of the bases overnight. Nor would they have the support to defend and keep those bases, so when everyone in the other empires log on, they can just as easily take it back. This is just a guess on my part of course.. Asherons call and Planetside are 2 completely different breeds of MMOGs

[Hamma]

Yea Hard to say how the game will be paced.. if its fast, then things could change overnight. However I think taking over areas will take a while..

[Rayzer]

The original idea will never work, even though I fully understand what you are trying to do.

People live in different places they have different schedules. But the bottom line is, you cannot restrict them to certain servers/times simply because of this.

In DAOC our guild has a bunch of people who work third shift. I usually see them an hour before I log off, after having been on for 2 or 3 hours. Then they play for however long. But we still get to hang out.

What happen if my 3 hour gaming window happens between your sever switches? Basically you are forcing me to play 1 hour on this server, then I'm booted and wait for the next to come up.

It is a persistant world. Things like time are important. Yes, it sucks to be asleep when someone takes over your base. But that is all part of the online reality of the game. To try and take that away would defeat the point of having a persistant world. If you want a quick wam-bam just when you are on, play a normal FPS. The point of an on going, ever chaning world, is to be able to log on whenever you want and see what is going on in the world. Giving people a 5 hour window to play on a certain server would destroy any MMOG. People like to be by their friends, dispite different schedules.

I mean should they shut down the servers for Christmas just b/c some people might be a church? You turn them on, you let them run. Non-prime time raids will always happen, but they are part of the world, and yes, a valid tactic (although annoying to those that are asleep )

[Kaikou]

^^^^yeah, he explained it better

I'm not sure if this is what you mean..but if different servers were brought online at different times, each having different info, then basically you are just playing the same scenario over and over..to an extent..Its better to have one persistant world then 5 worlds all with different info...because that would just be confusing...Not a whole lot will happen overnight, no matter how fast paced the game is. You WILL however notice a difference if you haven't played for a week and just got back from a vacation or something and find that the vanu empire is overrunning everything when before you left, the new conglomerate were dominating everything. All a part of the game, it will all balance out. I wouldn't worry about overnight events too much.

[Flashingfish]

I might be wrong here, but in games like DAoC, there are things you can actually do when there aren't others around.

But in Planetside, you don't get manys bonuses for captured undefended bases. We've been told that the number of BEPs you recieve is affected by the "threat factor" of the area, i.e. the more enemies the more BEPs you get.

So if you were there when everyone else wasn't, you wouldn't get many more BEPs although you would be able to capture bases (which would then be recaptured the next day ).